The Razor System

I am a bit reluctant to share my tactics, but after much thought i decided to put it up here for other to try.

The Story.

After mixed results using other peoples tactics i decided to put something together for my own long term game, I am Hull City with a new chairman promising lots of money but expecting european qualification, the season is 2017/18. The previous season with my new chairman I spent big and only placed 7th narrowly missing out on euro qualification, my team appeared solid to me however performances were inconsisten, in my opinion tactics were to blame. Most of the downloaded tactics i'd used scored plenty of goals, but were leaky in defence, the few i tried that defended well seemed to struggle to keep possesion and result in lots of drawn games. I analysed these tactics, looking at the player roles and team instructions, some things stood out as needing to be kept such as the poacher/trequartists combination which i learnt early on with the game, otheres needed to be dumped, such as defensive full backs, for some reason defensive tactics seemed to work best with full backs set in the wing back role. Common team instructions seemed to be short passing and pressing so they were in

Like many successful tactics posted i took the 4-2-4 formation as my base, i used the inside forward/winger combination for the wide players which i had success with from minimal fuss, the result was the Razor A formation which at least for my team seems a good plug and play formation, but i need to be better against the top teams and in tight matches such as cup games this is where my two tactic system comes into play best. I dropped the trequartista forward back into central midfield and made him an advanced playmaker, i tweaked the team instructions to be a little more defensive and focus on counter attacking, and Razor B was born.

I took over match preparation plugged both tactics in, setting the focus to be on defensive positioning, I only signed two first team players, Marek Hamsik for 13.75m and in the transfer window i got Theo Walcott for 3.5m to act as cover.

The result is below

7th Place to 2nd place missing out on the title by goal difference, to a pretty dominant Man Utd Side, I was the second highest scorers and the second best defensively, I lost the least games out of all the teams and to be honest, on another season 84 points may well have won the title for me. I also won the FA Cup and Manager of the Year

I want to share this system to see how others do, whilst i continue my career game and try to win more with Hull and my new found millions.

Here is how to use the Tactic.

Make sure you have both in the match preparation area and set the focus to defensive movement.

NEVER USE OI, make sure your assistant is not setting it for you either, performing OI seems to take the focus off the players performing their role and often leads to the formation becoming unbalanced.

Use the 4-2-4 Razor A as your base, you could use it all season long if you wanted but sometimes i like to be cautious.

If you are underdogs Use Razor B to start the game, the rule here is to change to Razor A if you are losing or Drawing at half time and bring on the extra striker, The change of formation usually unsettles the opposition and leads to a goal being scored.

I started all my FA Cup games with Razor B and managed to lift the trophy using this method.

Try it out and see what you think.

Razor A http://www.sendspace.com/file/zgufzx

Razor B http://www.sendspace.com/file/15ood5

UPDATE

Razor C, the stand alone plug and play version of this tactic is ready, no need now to switch tactics, this one works better when you are underdogs although it still wont guarantee you always beat the better team it will make you harder to beat and will often result in stealing draws or sneaky wins

Razor C http://www.sendspace.com/file/dq9i26

I started using your tactic after 6 games and I;ve got to say out of 30 or more tactics I have tried I have found this to be the most realistic and consistant to date.

My record this season with this tactic was P45 W31 D3 L11 F96 A45. A win ratio of 69% and a plus 41 gd with to be fair a pretty average millwall side is a return that I am more than happy with.

Well done bigdaddydave, this is my favourite.

I can not believe that nobody else has even acknowledged this tactic.

I've been using this formation for 7 or 8 games and I only have positive feedback for it. I've moved Celtic down to the championship and have been trying out a few of my own formations which have been hit and miss. Usual story with my attempts. :S This formation has has given my team a level on consistancy that I haven't been able to achieve on my own!

Well done bigdaddydave!

Been working more on this, trying to make it a one tactic plug and play system if possible, testing with wigan and we are hard to beat, although a few to many draws for my liking, however i think i may have cracked this, here is a sneak peek of my last result in the carling cup quarter final, two late goals snatch it, but we dominated them the whole match

Another Solid result, still tweaking though

What's your league position currently? Looks promising.

Currently only 16th, but actually just 3 points off being 11th place after 31games, a lot of tweaking has been done in this save and i've drawn far too many during the tweaking phase, i just carried on though i'm not one for saving/reloading to get it right. will be testing next in Scotland to see how it works with lesser players. Strangely iv'e found the more defensive i try to be the more i concede and the more attacking i get the less i score, there is some fine balancing to do

Edit, finished in 13th place in the end. Not bad media prediction was 17th.

Razor C the plug and play stand alone version is ready (see 1st post for link), here are the results of a quick 10 games test with Aberdeen, Media Prediction is 7th, no signings made and we had no natural wingers either, if i had brought these in results would presumably have been even better, still i'm happy so far.

Playing as Bayern and I started using your A & B versions last night. Very impressed with those. Had good possession and performances on pretty much all the games I played. Just tried C and won 4-0 in the first game with 25 shots, 9 on target, 6 CCC and 63% possession.

Wish I had had this tactic with my Hoffenheim team, last season, as it would have worked very well with the players I had.

Playing as Bayern and I started using your A & B versions last night. Very impressed with those. Had good possession and performances on pretty much all the games I played. Just tried C and won 4-0 in the first game with 25 shots, 9 on target, 6 CCC and 63% possession.

Wish I had had this tactic with my Hoffenheim team, last season, as it would have worked very well with the players I had.

I've tweaked razor C slightly which makes it more solid defensively and creates slightly more chances, so redownload it from the 1st post and try it out

I've tweaked razor C slightly which makes it more solid defensively and creates slightly more chances, so redownload it from the 1st post and try it out

I have to say I prefer the original C at the moment. I do need to test a lot more and the below are just initial thoughts rather than any sort of comprehensive test.

To me the original C looks more potent going forward. Tonight with the original I have won 4-0 against Mainz, 6-0 against Hajduk and 6-1 against Werder. I used new C for one game (between Hajduk and Werder) and won 2-0 against Hertha, but although the possession stats were comparable, the shots were well down (though the Hertha game was away whilst the other 3 were at home).

I don't know if you want to try it, but I have a tall striker in the poacher position (Mario Gomez) and I have put him on challenge keeper on the corner settings. Not changed anything else on them. He has scored one direct header and has also tapped in from headers from the attack far post defender.

Either way, all 4 tactics I have downloaded have been good.

Don't know if any has read this or already uses this but I've found that this really works;

Team Talks ... Very very important

I am using Zero Sea's team talk : Home or Away, Pre match or half time always use You have faith / You can make difference no matter on win or losing condition.

And let my assistance manager take my post match team talk.

Got that from Kimz new thread on his '11 formation. Its made a big difference for me so far. Started to score a lot more!

Robs

hi dave what attributes need for the players?

hi dave what attributes need for the players?

In all honesty nothing out of the ordinary, obviously your poacher needs good finishing and pace helps too, but everywhere else just needs resonable players. I tested with Droylsden and won the conference north without signing any players and clearly the players at my disposal were nothing special

Dave, I'm intrigued about this - people are rating it highly!

Would it work with a team like spurs with good players?

It seems like lots of the testing has been done with weaker teams that's all.

How about the pitch size?

I'm guessing the max pitch since this is the widest one. Quite perfect to widen defences or am I wrong?

pitch size has been left standard, ive not really tried wider but it may work.

As for it working with spurs, they should be a good team, the full backs play as wing backs and are very attacking so someone like bale would be well suited

I have been tweaking and testing further and how now got the attacking movement down even better, most games we enjoy more possession than the opposition, however i am still concerned that the majority of goals conceded come from one of three area's

1. Set Pieces

2. Quick Counters

3. Long Shots

Anyone got any suggestions to tighten up in these areas?

i have lots of man marking when defending set pieces, for freekicks 5 man wall 5 man man mark. for defending corners, all the defenders and midfielders man mark an donly the psychical weaker players guard far and near post while the quickest player is set to forward. to tackle counter attacks, drop the defensive line, i always play this eventhough i am not being countered. for long shots, if it is done by the opposition mc's you need to tight mark them.